Fantastic Four Annual #1: Reed’s Stretchy Body 34

Fantastic Four Annual #1, page 26, panels 4-5

Written by: Stan Lee

Drawn by: Jack Kirby

Inking: Dick Ayers

Lettering: Art Simek

It’s a two-fer today. I didn’t include any panels of Reed bouncing around the room as a giant ball, as we’ve seen that before. But he’s never done that move in front of someone as powerful and as resourceful as Namor, so he’s never had this done to him before…

I love this gag, as Namor stretches Reed into a punching bag and wails on him. It doesn’t come at the expense of the narrative reality of the fight, and visually it’s superb. One could wonder where Namor had experienced a boxing gym to gain inspiration for this move, but that would be unnecessarily nitpicky…